NFL:

The New England Patriots have opened up as 10½ point favorites in early ‘look-ahead’ advanced lines posted by the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook for NFL week eight. The AFC East rivals will kick off next week’s league action next Thursday in Foxboro. This weekend in early afternoon action the 5-0 Pats host the 4-1 Jets, while 2-3 Miami hosts 2-4 Houston; both of those games start at 1:00 pm eastern time.

Other than the Pats-Fins of course, the best game should be between the undefeated Packers and Broncos on Sunday night; other good matchups include the Bengals at Steelers in an early afternoon game, and Indy at Carolina on Monday night.

With a great chess match between the Patriots and Jets looming on Sunday, we look at who will be the X-Factors for the Jets defense and the Patriots offense

NFL week seven gets underway tonight with an all-NFC West game, as the Seattle Seahawks travel to Santa Clara to play the San Francisco 49ers. Game kicks off at 8:25 pm eastern time and is televised on CBS. Seattle is favored by 6½ points.

The Patriots and Jets meet for the 116th time in their history at Gillette Stadium on Sunday. Like most, this game promises to be a very close one.

The Jets’ Chris Ivory is having an outstanding start to the 2015 season, he’s amassed 460 yards rushing, four touchdowns and has a 5.5 yard average

Here are three up and three down for the Patriots 34-27 win over the Colts on Sunday night. Tom Brady led the way again with another 300 yd game and 3 TDs

The Patriots capitalizing on two miscues from the Colts special team units, rolled to their seventh straight victory over Indy 34-27, improving to 5-0

Tarell Browns IR designation leaves the Patriots thin at CB with only four healthy corners going into the Indianapolis game.

Aside from the highly anticipated annihilation of the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night, there are several quality matchups which should be very competitive during the afternoon preliminaries. In the early afternoon Arizona travels to Pittsburgh looking to avoid a second loss after winning their first four games; that will not be an easy task at Heinz Field against a Steeler offense that boasts of Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell. 5-0 Cincinnati at Buffalo is a another compelling early game, and Denver – with their inconsistency on offense – may not have as easy a game as had been previously thought when they travel to Cleveland. There are also two good late afternoon games: San Diego at Green Bay, and Carolina at Seattle.

In the New England area CBS will broadcast the Bengals-Bills game early, followed by the Chargers-Packers at 4:25 pm; Washington at the Jets will be the single game on FOX early.

Author Sean Glennon takes a great look at some of the very best….and heartbreaking moments in Patriots history. It is required reading for Patriots fans

Rob Gronkowski can do it all for the Patriots, run blocking, moving the chains in the short to intermediate passing game and as a deep threat for Tom Brady

While all eyes are focusing (and appropriately so) on Sunday night’s game at Indianapolis. advanced lines have already been set for NFL week seven. The New England Patriots have opened as 9½-point favorites over division rival New York Jets in week seven look-ahead lines. That represent the largest early line point spread for the thirteen NFL games being played next week. At this moment in time the Pats-Jets contest is the only week seven game between two teams with winning records. Three thus far undefeated teams – the Packers, Bengals and Broncos – are all off with a bye.

New Atlanta head coach Dan Quinn spent nearly twenty years as a defensive line coach prior to becoming Seattle’s defensive coordinator for two years, when the Seahawks were the NFL’s best defense and won the Super Bowl. While it is still a work in progress, Atlanta’s defense has noticeably improved from the porous sieve that they were the last couple of years. The Falcon offensive line suffered through more than their share of injuries last year; that group being healthy has led to a much improved offense, especially running the ball

The Patriots offense in the last four meetings with Indianapolis has put up 59, 43, 42 and 45 points for an average of 42 points per game. Advantage NE

The Patriots next opponent the Colts are off to a slow start and will be looking to end a string of recent blowout defeats against New England.